


tonight is forever

by owilde



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, M/M, Romance, War Era, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 17:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18370757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owilde/pseuds/owilde
Summary: Their camp’s quiet, and so the footsteps are easy to hear, and easier yet to decipher as belonging to Steve. Bucky returns his gaze to the fire, but shifts slightly to the left to allow Steve space to sit down next to him. He does.“Thought you might be here,” Steve says lightly.





	tonight is forever

**Author's Note:**

> I just miss writing. And these two. And writing these two.
> 
> Title taken from Pet Shop Boys' song of the same name.

Bucky stares at the fire for so long, he starts thinking his eyes might soon go blind with it. The night is still warm around him – the end of August, dripping slowly into September, day by day, and soon it’ll be cold again, and then freezing, and then Bucky’ll wish he’d be back home, staring at a fireplace instead and eating proper food and not being afraid every single goddamn day.

But for now, it’s August. Gentle August, with mild temperatures and cool breezes. Fresh green trees and stamped on fields of grass, now few and far between but nevertheless there, and Bucky might be inclined to feel something akin to peace within himself if it weren’t for the fact that he can hear cannons fire off in the night, and regularly wakes up to the rat-a-tat of a machine gun, never quite sure whether it came from his dreams or from somewhere near their camp.

It is what it is, he thinks to himself, and what it is, is a horrible, infinite war with no end date in sight, no guarantee, no certainty of anything – and him, plopped in the middle of it, barely a man but suddenly responsible for countless of lives, lives he’s saved and lives he’s taken. He doesn’t know which weighs heavier in his conscience. He doesn’t know how he’s going to live with himself, after. If there is an after.

Bucky tears his eyes away and cranes his head to look up at the twinkling stars covering the dark velvet of the night sky. There are patterns, but he doesn’t know them. The stars won’t care whether he lives or dies, or anyone else. The stars don’t choose sides. They exist outside of time, outside of morality.

Wouldn’t it be easier, to not care? To not have to fight? But it’s built in to him, now. He doesn’t want to, but his finger squeezes the trigger easier than before. Blood doesn’t faze him, anymore. Seeing a caved in head, splintered bones, skin burned to hardened black and peeling off – none of it seems to make an impact, anymore, not really. Which makes Bucky think that he must be turning into something less than a human, less than a being.

Some days, living in his own skin repulses him.

But.

But, it’s the same skin that Steve likes to trace indefinable patterns on. The same skin Steve presses his nose against, holds, caresses, touches like it isn’t holding a monster inside of it. Steve looks at Bucky like he doesn’t know, but he does. Steve knows more than anyone, what Bucky’s done and what he hasn’t. What he thinks and what he feels.

And he’s elected not to care. Or maybe he can’t find himself to. And ultimately, Bucky rationalizes to himself, if someone like Steven Grant Rogers – Captain fucking America – can find _him_ redeemable, desirable, _lovable –_ then maybe, it’s possible that Bucky isn’t such a doomed creature, in the end.

Their camp’s quiet, and so the footsteps are easy to hear, and easier yet to decipher as belonging to Steve. Bucky returns his gaze to the fire, but shifts slightly to the left to allow Steve space to sit down next to him. He does.

“Thought you might be here,” Steve says lightly. There’s rustling – paper, Bucky knows, sketch paper. Steve has the soul of an artist, not a fighter. A leader, too, yes – but he shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here at all, shouldn’t have been here to begin with. It’s too late, now. He has blood on his hands, too. Bucky mourns more for Steve’s soul and heart than he does for his own.

“Can’t sleep,” Bucky replies, knowing that Steve knows this already. “What’s the time, anyway? Must be reaching crack of dawn, if you’re up and at ‘em.”

The sound of pencil against paper, coarse and familiar. Steve huffs, amused. “Nah, sometime past midnight.” Before Bucky can ask, he answers. “Didn’t know how to sleep without you.”

The words sound so easy and honest, it takes Bucky slightly aback. He turns his head to look at Steve, immersed in his drawing, head slightly bowed. Strands of dirty blonde hair fall on his forehead. His shirt looks dirty as can be. His shoes are covered in grime, his skin tainted with the smell of soap to cover up the stench of blood.

And Bucky, God help him if He hasn’t already abandoned him, loves him so deep and true, it seems almost impossible. “Shoulda asked me to come over, then,” he manages in a rough voice.

Steve’s lips flicker into a smile. “Yeah, soon enough,” he promises. He looks up, meeting Bucky’s eyes. His smile dims a little, dips into something sadder. “Still blue.”

Bucky frowns. “Why’d they be anything else?”

Steve returns to his drawing. Bucky steals a look, and finds himself staring at himself, younger than now, happier than now, back in Brooklyn with a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He wonders if this is how Steve sees him.

“You talk in your sleep sometimes,” Steve says after a moment. “Mostly it’s incomprehensible – not that different from your waking moments, to be honest–”

“Hey,” Bucky says, feigning indignation, and gently smacks his upper arm.

“–but sometimes, I pick out a phrase or two. You say you feel your eyes turning dark. Your soul being tainted, corrupted. Sometimes, you just say my name.” Steve pauses to sigh quietly, sorting his thoughts and words. “I think… I think you just need to hear someone tell you this. You’re a good man, Bucks. Best man I know. And there’s nothing that’ll ever change that – not this war, and not anything else, either. And you oughta know that.”

Then he keeps drawing, like nothing happened.

Bucky stares at the forming picture of himself, watches Steve fill in details he wasn’t even aware of having. Was it possible, to be so loved by another, that it negated all wrongdoings, all sins, all this dirty work they’ve been doing in the name of peace for so long?

It must be. Steve’s hands have killed, but now they’re creating art, and soon they’ll be mapping out Bucky’s equally tainted body. Bucky’s hands have shot and maimed and shot again, but now they’re reaching out to ruffle Steve’s hair, linger by the nape of his neck.

“Kiss me,” Bucky says. Dares. Wants.

Steve doesn’t ask why. Doesn’t ask, can they, here, now, what if someone sees or hears or suspects. He doesn’t question, because when it comes to Bucky, he doesn’t need to.

He tastes of a new tomorrow. He tastes of infinite tomorrows, and a future, a future which Bucky will fight tooth and nail for, if it means he gets to have him and Steve, Steve and him, entwined and together, for as long as there exists a world for them to have.


End file.
